Shadow Footprints

Tuesday night I attended Ignite Wellington. This is the first time Wellington has had an Ignite event. Ignite is a world-wide event, and this week it has been a global event, with presentations in 35 cities.

It's a tough presentation process; speakers have 5 minutes to talk on a subject, with 20 slides, each auto-advancing after 15 seconds.There was a couple of technical issues last night, making it harder for the speakers concerned to time their speeches with the slides. The better presentations didn't rely so much on their slides, and didn't use highly detailed slides.

Some presenters seemed only interested in self-promotion; some wanted to inform; and some wanted to simply entertain. Most inspired.

A few things I learnt from the evening:

• Vikings probably never lived in Dannevirke
• World-wide there are twice as many mobile phones as credit cards
• Teach gradually and playfully
• Show users ways to engage with your site with a smile
• Venice Biennale is awesome
• Insights come later
• Travel light and trust the serendipity
• Wellington's shared car are hidden
• We're going to be screwed over to preserve the failing business model of large corporations
• Use your mind to drive yourself past your boundaries
• Hire for attitude; skills can be taught later
• Get into the zone to win
• The creative destruction process describes what is happening in the music industry.
• Make it fun to connect people to their local environment
• Ideas take up brain real-estate. Dumping them into a book means they're not lost.
• Mind -> book -> list -> story => essence of an idea => ideas that really work for many, not just you
• Positive thinking is a brain hack. Picturing a positive outcome makes the task easier
• Kiwis can successfully help in emergencies from half a world away
• Failure is the best option
• Sometimes following the rules is wrong
• Prepare to fail; then learn and connect
• When you fail is when the adventure begins

The Ignite videos aren't available as I write this, but I look forwarding to seeing them soon.

I think I might try presenting next time. I'll need to find a suitable subject that can be entertaining. Thought-provoking subjects need more than 5 minutes.

My support for Movember this year is complete. Here's a slideshow of the daily progress of growing a mo.

I took a break from the preparation to move house to attend Wellington's first Usability Barcamp today.

The sessions I attended (and took part in) were:

1. Hot to employ and retain usability professionals
2. A usability professional needs to look at wider processes
3. Usability in the wider world; not just the web space
4. Goal directed design
5. Design consequences
6. Remote user testing
7. User centred design in a physical world
8. How to stop acceptance of 'usable enough'
9. Overcoming procrastination
10. Ideas to help Sahana

I have lots of references to follow up.

Unfortunately, due to the move preparation, I didn't attend the after drinks at the Southern Cross.

Thanks to all those attending for a great barcamp, Kat for organising it, and to the sponsors for all their support.